Wired has reported that Uber Eats drivers in the UK are being fired because of the company’s faulty facial identification software, which requires drivers to submit selfies to confirm their identity. When the technology isn’t able to match photos of the drivers with their accounts, drivers get booted off the system and are unable to work, and thus unable to pay their bills. This isn’t the first time this has happened—in 2019 a Black Uber driver in the U.S. sued the company for its discriminatory facial recognition.
Cases like this are becoming increasingly prevalent: Amazon delivery drivers now have to agree to AI surveillance, including facial identification, or else lose their job, and Apple recently banned facial recognition on employees visiting manufacturing sites, but failed to apply this ban to also protect factory workers. This level of surveillance creates many problems, including suppressing worker efforts to organize and engage in collective action. In each of these cases frontline and marginalized workers are being targeted and their safety and rights are being undermined in favor of corporate surveillance, control, and power.
These cases clearly show how private use of facial recognition by corporations, institutions and even individuals poses just as much of a threat to marginalized
— source fightforthefuture.org | Apr 14, 2021